Australian Aboriginal Painting by Makinti Napanangka for Papunya Tula

Details

Description

Artist: Makinti Napanangka (Australian c.1930-2011)
Language group: Pintupi
Year of creation: 2001
Dreaming Subject: The Travels of Kungka Kutjarra: the … Read more Artist: Makinti Napanangka (Australian c.1930-2011)
Language group: Pintupi
Year of creation: 2001
Dreaming Subject: The Travels of Kungka Kutjarra: the Two Women
Medium: Synthetic polymer paint on linen
Mark: inscribed verso with artist's name and Papunya Tula Artists cat. no. MN0105154. Gallery label from Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney verso as shown.
Provenance: Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs, Northern Territory (accompanied by a digital copy of the certificate of authenticity)
Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney 2001 (exhibition label verso)
Exhibition: Makinti Napanangka - New Paintings, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney 10 November - 5 December 2001, cat. no. 23
About the work:
Painted in 2001, the height of the artist's creativity, "this painting depicts designs associated with the travels of the Kungka Kutjan'a (Two Women) to a site on the south side of Lake MacDonald. The two women were digging for the small animal Kuningka (Western Quoll). These animals usually live in burrows which were dug by other animals such as the Burrowing Bettong or Rabbits and occasionally in hollow logs. The lines in the work represent spun hair which is made into hair-string skirts worn by the women during ceremonies associated with the site. The women later continued their travels to the east."
As stated on a copy of the Papunya Tula Artists certificate of authenticity.
Artist Biography:
Makinti Napanangka (c.1930-2011) was one of the most influential painters of the Western Desert movement and a prominent member of the Papunya Tula Artists cooperative. A senior Pintupi law custodian woman, she was central to the mid-1990s surge of women artist's painting from Kintore and Kiwirrkura, the beginning of Pintupi women's participation as independent artists in the Western Desert art movement. Makinti's style refined a pictorial language that conveyed ceremonial motion as rhythm and color, layering the canvases with paint, creating a sense of movement, which was a contrast to the detailed and precise dotting that is typical of men's traditional painting of Dreaming Law.
Her work centered on two related Dreamtime stories, the journeys of Kungka Kutjarra (the two ancestral women), and the Rockhole site of Lupulnga, South of Kintore, The Kungka Kutjarra is associated with the sites around Lake MacDonald (Kaakuratintja) and the ceremonial Rockhole of Lupulnga, over which she held custodial rights. Her paintings from the late 1990s to the 2000s, pursue this story with increasing visual confidence. The concentric Rockhole motifs from earlier works gave way to expanses of undulating lines, representing the string of the skirts worn in ceremonial dance. These flowing lines created a dynamic sense of movements of the dance. This repeated thematic focus, anchored in knowledge of the place and performed ritual, is central to Makinti's authority as a cultural custodian, as well as to the artwork's visual power.
In the early 2000s, Makinti began to experience greater recognition for her innovative and energetic artworks. In 2000, one of her works was included in the major retrospective exhibition 'Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius' at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, and in 2003, in the Clemenger Contemporary Art Award at the National Gallery of Victoria. In 2008, Makinti won the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award with an untitled painting of Lupulnga which was an acknowledgement of both artistic achievement and cultural leadership. The career defining prize helped spotlight Papunya Tula women artists within national narratives of contemporary art, not merely as an adjunct to the creation stories of men. See less